Emily Love Morrison is a Washington, DC actor, currently performing in American Century Theater’s “Little Murders,” by Jules Feiffer. ...more...
Archives for January 2012
Arts America Blog
Celestial Soundtrack: Music for Pitiable Pluto and Other Cosmic Phenomena
January 26, 2012 by
This weekend the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra is performing Gustov Holst’s orchestral suite The Planets, and the program got me thinking. Holst has movements for Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune… What about poor old Pluto?
First, some details: Performances are Saturday and Sunday, January 28 and 29, 2012, at 8:00 pm and 4:00 pm, respectively, in the Atwood Concert Hall of the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts. ...more...
LPO to play at St. Louis Cathedral tonight
January 26, 2012 by
For the past five years the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) has put on a free concert in conjunction with the Historic New Orleans Collection (HNOC). The idea is to make the music of the historical periods catalogued by the HNOC come to life and give meaning to them in a way that books, maps and historic documents can never do. The LPO for its part gets to play some very …more…
The Visual Arts Center at The University of Texas Celebrates the New Year with an Open Invitation to the Public
January 25, 2012 by
Diana Al-Hadid, Gradiva’s Fourth Wall, 2011, polymer gypsum, wood, fiberglass, paint
On Friday, January 27th, from 6:00pm – 9:00pm, The University of Texas at Austin’s Visual Arts Center cordially invites the public to a free, spectacular reception honoring the first four exhibitions of the 2012 season. There will be plenty of refreshments, enticing art, and knowledgeable art folk there with which to mingle.
The first artist to be featured in the …more…
THE 2012 JACK ZINK SPIRIT AWARDS
January 25, 2012 by
The late Jack Zink for whom the Spirit Award is named
The award-winning Mosaic Theatre is excited to announce the winners of the “Jack Zink Spirit Award” to be presented at the “Dial M for Mosaic Theatre Gala & Auction 2012” on Saturday, March 10, 2012. The Mosaic Theatre renamed its annual “Spirit Awards” in August of 2008 to honor legendary theatre critic, cultural arts leader and advocate, the late …more…
Floating Femininity
January 25, 2012 by
Moving in Colors, Korean artist’s Key Sook Geum latest exhibition, we get a dose of a matriarchial dress society with absent bodies. Beautifully created dresses floating seamlessly to conture the female form in all its glory. The absence of a real body makes the sculptures even more interensting and somewhat delicate. The wirey adaptations of beautiful gowns have an energy flowing through them that, I think, Geum inteneded on showing …more…
Come Back, Africa Being Screened at the Film Forum Until Feb. 2
January 25, 2012 by
One of the reasons I love New York City is that I love it when I have the opportunity to view an old classic on the silver screen. Starting this weekend on Friday, January 27, Film Forum is holding daily screenings of Lionel Rogosin’s groundbreaking classic, Come Back, Africa.
Here’s a little background on the film:
After making his Academy Award nominated documentary On the Bowery, Rogosin was determined to expose the injustices of …more…
First Fridays coming up February 3rd
January 24, 2012 by
Alan Disparte Painting at Modified Arts
All Phoenix art lovers always know what they’ll be doing on the first Friday of the month. First Fridays is a downtown Phoenix tradition that has been around for about twenty years. For this one night of the month, various galleries and art spaces in the downtown art district open their doors free of charge in an effort to promote the local arts businesses …more…
Feeding the Trolls: Copyright just got longer (again)
January 24, 2012 by
The U.S. Supreme Court issued an incredibly ill-considered and poorly-reasoned decision last week in Golan v. Holder – one that will cost American orchestras and opera companies millions of dollars and one that does nothing to promote artistic development. The court ruled Congress could retroactively apply copyright protection to works in the public domain. At issue were Iron-curtain works, such as the symphonies of Shostakovich and Prokofiev, not subject to …more…
Taking photos is still taboo at Detroit-area theaters
January 24, 2012 by
You are welcome in any Detroit-area theater – as long as you leave your camera phone in your pocket.
That’s what a friend of mine recently discovered when he visited The Detroit Opera House. He was there with his wife and friends during the popular run of the punk musical, “American Idiot.” He did what any Detroit-loving guy might do – he felt so inspired by the performance that he decided …more…
Fertile Ground Festival 2012
January 23, 2012 by
Fertile Ground, Portland’s festival of new local work, gets bigger every year since its launch in 2009. This year, the 10-day festival features 68 new events including world premiere theatre, dance, comedy, staged readings, visual art and film. With so many locally grown options to choose from, there’s no doubt your plate will be full this week. After opening weekend, here are my suggestions to make the most of the …more…
Happy Anniversary: Free Bang on a Can All-Stars Album through January 25
January 23, 2012 by
Few ensembles have been as integral to the propagation of new music both nationally and abroad as the Bang on a Can All-Stars. In addition to premiering compositions by Bang on a Can founding composers Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe, the amplified sextet has interpreted the works of Brian Eno, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Terry Riley, and many others. ...more...
The Olympic Sculpture Park Celebrates Its 5th Anniversary
January 23, 2012 by
“Does anyone have a business card?” our docent asks.
Ripping the offered card carefully and expanding it to a rough Z shape, the docent explains how the project designers, Weiss/Manfredi of New York, came up with the Olympic Sculpture Park’s unusual layout. Voilà! ...more...
You can’t be cavalier about Cavalia
January 23, 2012 by
Photo by Darrell Scattergood.
I attended the premiere of Cavalia at Redmond’s Marymoor Park on Friday. Delayed for two nights due to the snowstorm blanketing the Seattle area, this treat was worth the wait.
Even if you’re one of the dozen people in this world who don’t like horses, you’ll enjoy this epic performance. The choreography, sets, music and themes are all superb.
The show, while extraordinary when it first visited the …more…
Giorgio di Sant’Angelo at Phoenix Art Museum
January 22, 2012 by
Giorgio di Sant’Angelo was an Italian-born fashion designer whose three-decade long career is one of the most vibrant and exuberant moments in the history of American fashion design. Sant’Angelo is responsible for capturing hippie culture, with a feminine and progressive edge, and introducing it to the luxury fashion world. Rising to prominence in the late 60s, the designer took to the hippie movement and created high fashion based on Native …more…
Trouble Puppet Theater featured on PBS documentary
January 22, 2012 by
Trouble Puppet Theater will be featured in an upcoming one-hour episode of “Arts in Context” on PBS station KLRU. The program focuses on the theater’s 2011 production of Riddley Walker, which was based on the novel of the same name by recently deceased author Russell Hoban. The puppet theater’s production was included in the Austin Chronicle’s Top 10 Arts Events of 2011. Check KLRU listings for times so you …more…
Jazz Pirates?
January 22, 2012 by
Arrrr! Thar she blows the saxophone! (via http://www.cindyvallar.com/pirates.html)
I know, I know. You’ve probably heard more than enough about SOPA and PIPA this week. I won’t drag my opinion about the whole matter into this blog (and being a songwriter and working musician myself, my opinions on the issue are complicated). I do, however, want to put forth a thought for the jazz community.
In my (ever so humble) opinion, the …more…
“World Beats: Global Contemporary Art” at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
January 21, 2012 by
River Escape Panel
Currently showing at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, “World Beats: Global Contemporary Art” is an eclectic mix of paintings, painted photographs, sculpture and found-object art by eight artists whose works range from the glib to the ironic to the poignant.
My choice for most dramatic impact is an arrangement of nine panels—from a larger group of 50—by Cy Thao, a Hmong-American whose family fled Laos in 1975, when …more…
NEC Celebrates the Work of Claude Debussy
January 21, 2012 by
While the coming of a new year offers plenty of reasons to celebrate, there is one occasion this year that might go unnoticed. 2012 marks 150 years since one of the greatest instrumental composers ever was born — Claude Debussy. ...more...
Performing This Weekend: Pulse, Anchorage’s Thrilling New Dance Ensemble
January 21, 2012 by
Anchorage’s Pulse Dance Company is performing this weekend, and it promises to be the most exciting dance concert in Alaska this spring. That may be a brash and hyperbolic statement, but I can’t help it. Watch a couple videos of Pulse for yourself (there are several on their website). You may decide that you agree with me.
First, the need-to-know: Pulse performs at 8:00 pm on Friday and Saturday, January 20 and 21, 2012 ...more...
Lembit Beecher Presents Documentary Oratorio And Then I Remember in NYC
January 20, 2012 by
Taimi Lepasaar, top, and Ants Lepasaar, flier for "And Then I Remember;" culled from Lembit Beecher's website.
Outside of the medium of opera, composers are not often characterized as storytellers. Increasingly in recent years, however, with the use of multimedia to tell abidingly personal stories in a concert setting, the description of composer-as-storyteller has become more apt.
At 8 p.m. today, January 20 and Saturday, January 21 at …more…
Man oh Man!
January 20, 2012 by
I walked into the BCA (Burlington City Arts) firehouse gallery shaking from the frigid Burlington air. I had ventured out into the cold to see Adam Putnam’s “magic lanterns” exhibit. Maybe my brain was still frozen, but for some reason I wasn’t too excited about the exhibit and haphazardly walked upstairs to the second exhibit. On the second floor photographer Evie Lovett’s exhibit, “Backstage at the rainbow Cattle Co.” caught …more…
Kleber Rebello: The Real Thing
January 20, 2012 by
Kleber Rebello
Kleber Rebello is one of the few male ballet dancers of today embodying the essence of princeliness so essential to the great classical ballets. His presence on stage at once announces that we are looking at the real thing, not a man engaged in bravura only, but also in true majesty of the art form.
From Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Rebello trained at the trained at Escola de Dança …more…
Faubourg Quartet to play Dankner, Beethoven
January 20, 2012 by
One of the great losses to the New Orleans classical music world in the wake of Hurricane Katrina was the move of composer Stephen Dankner to a northern clime. Dankner was chairman of the music department of the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (NOCCA) and was also a member of the faculty at Loyola University’s Department of Musicprior to the devastation that wreaked havoc on the city from …more…
Teenie Harris, Photographer: An American Story at the CMA
January 20, 2012 by
It’s the halfway mark for the Teenie Harris, Photographer: An American Story exhibit at the Carnegie Museum of Art (CMA), which means there’s still plenty of time to take in photos by one of the century’s most influential artists in the medium. Put on display after 10 years of careful research and planning, the event is not to be missed.
The retrospective of photographer Charles “Teenie” Harris includes hundreds of his …more…
